Poured from a 22 oz. bottle into a New Belgium Globe glass. Bottle says enjoy by May 2014.

Appearance: Pours a bright and clear golden orange with a lot of bubbles. About one finger of white head that quickly fades into a thin patchy layer. Leaves a decent amount of lacing around the glass.

Smell: A unique and zesty aroma of sweet and tart fruits, spice, and yeast. Belgian yeast with some hints of funk and clove spice. Big scent of the pluot with hints of apricot and plum along with hints of apple cider, orange, pineapple, papaya, pear, and a little banana. Candied sugar sweetness. Also picking up a little fall like cinnamon or nutmeg spice. Light hints of pale malt and a very subtle presence of hops. A very fruity and wine like aroma.

Taste: Like it smells, an interesting and juice like Belgian style taste of tart and sweet fruits with spices and yeast. Belgian yeast with some funk and clove spice with a little cinnamon. Big juicy taste from the pluot with notes of apricot and plums along with some tart apple cider, white grapes, papaya, pineapple, orange, pear, and banana. Sweet Belgian candied sugars. A little taste of bready pale malt. Hops are very subtle. The fruits dominate for the most part. A pretty good taste.

Mouthfeel: Medium to full bodied with a fairly high level of carbonation. Juicy, tart, and somewhat sticky with a champagne like fizzyness. Alcohol heat feels fairly mild.

Overall: A pretty interesting and decent take on the Tripel style. Solid fruit flavors and the sweetness is actually kept from becoming too overwhelming. Not great but a lot better than the ratings its getting.

Poured a nice cloudy orange with a one finger white head. Pretty nice looking. Scents of apricot, peach, melon, pineapple, and yes, pluot, as well as overripe fruit and sour fruit with a bit of earthy yeast and hints of alcohol that become more prominent as the beer warms. A good aroma, very fruit forward, very appealing as a result. Taste follows the aroma. Sweet fruit, apricot, tangerine, melon and yes, pluot, with white grape juice and moscato towards the end of the sip and on the finish. Very sweet, extremely fruity, but not bad. Quite nice if you want something fruity. There is a slight hint of alcohol as the beer warms, hiding behind all the fruity flavors. Mouthfeel is medium-heavy bodied, quite sticky in the mouth, with moderate high carbonation. A bit of a sipping beer as a result, but it doesn't feel bad at all. Overall this is a nice beer. It's different, quite sweet, but good if that's what you want. The fruity flavors are on full display, and that feels like what this beer was supposed to be about. I enjoyed it.

16oz glass at Craft in Cowtown, for the Alberta New Belgium Brewing release party back in February (I gotta pack my written notes a little less securely, I think). A Tripel brewed with that Frankenstein fruit, the pluot, huh? Ok.

This beer appears a glassy, yet mostly clear, pale golden amber hue, with yet another (it's the locale, nothing I can do about that) thin cap of bubbly, fizzy ecru head, which leaves some decent webbed, hovering island lace around the glass as things duly recede.

It smells of plum wine (and that time, back in business school, where the Japanese exchange student, he got bombed on such, and puked in the car ride home the next morning), proper cereal and caramel malts, earthy yeast, mild funk, and tropical fruit-borne hops. The taste is big, dark fruit wine (plums and apricots, sure, but blackberries and cherries too), yeast, much less funk than expected from the nose, bready caramel malt, candi sugar, a bit of free-association dry peach and other befuddled tropical fruit, and a barely bridled flinty booziness.

The carbonation is fairly soft, just a lilting frothiness for the most part, the body a steady medium weight, and generally smooth, with a touch of airy creaminess. It finishes just off-dry, with the complex by default fruit and yeast contending with a burgeoning, rising alcohol edginess.

A nicely fruity, strong Belgian ale, Brett and all - yeasty, and still generally sweet, all in good measure. The pluot does well by its two-headed nature, supplying a sugary character that parries the elevated (even so for this style) booze, remaindering it to the 'well-integrated' pile. Happy to have had the chance to try this, in a heretofore unlikely as hell setting.